"Tell me, grandfather, what happened with you and that stranger last night. I have not heard you even whisper a tune in these past years. The last time you sang was at your mother's death. I demand you tell me what is going on," she looked dead straight into his old eyes. A lonely pair of eyes that reflected years of pain.

He looked around the tavern; there was no one at all. They have all gone to work the fields or mine. The old man took a deep breath, he slowly let it drift out. He reached up to his eye and whipped away a tear from his eye, "I am sorry, my granddaughter, but I cannot… I cannot tell you what has been haunting me since her passing. I am just a foolish old storyteller in a foolish little village. I love you, but I cannot say."

"You are not foolish; you are being prideful. It is alright to share the pain with friends and people who care about you deeply. You are a pillar of this foolish town. Who else would teach and help better our village other than you? Tell me, grandfather, what is brewing within your heart; for many years, you have locked your heart away."

The Storyteller lend over and with a loving kiss on her cheek, "Alright, my young one, I will tell you what I fear…."

There was a long silence before anyone spoke. You could have heard the wind blowing outside, and the sun was over the mountains now, bringing the new day's sun into the tavern. The children would soon finish their morning duties and come into the tavern for their daily lessons. Lesson provided by the Storyteller and Rebecca and she truly meant with all her heart that this village would be lost without her grandfather.

"Rebecca, I am afraid the mountain will awaken again; this time, it is hungry. This stranger is the first sign, I believe. Plus, the moon last night; I have not seen a blue moon since my youth. This stranger is not what he seems and has a glamour spell with him."

Rebecca's puzzlement started to grow. She could not believe what she was hearing from her grandfather. Rebecca thought to herself on the words: the mountain waking? That seemed too hard for her to picture, and what did he mean waking? When he was younger?

"When you were younger," she asked, perplexed.

"When I was younger, I was the singing fool," turning and looking out the front bay window as if looking into the past, "I was a bard for a small band of adventurers. We left the southern forest and came north, searching for dwarven gold. You might not know this, but there is magic in my songs."

The talked seemed to remove the glaze in his eyes. He snapped out of the dream of his past and he looked back towards his beautiful granddaughter. "It was my adventuring that awoke the goblins before, and it was how I met your grandmother. Did you know that she is an elf? She is still alive in the southern woods with her kin…."

The first group of children clambered into the tavern and ran over to the storyteller. They were a bundle of joy, happy to see his friendly face. He looked down at them and smiled.